Optimal Management of RTI – Intriguing New Results in ABECOPD in Asia

29 March, 2018

Question 5

Are there any cost advantages associated with this regimen?

Over the past decade, there has been a great pressure to reduce medical costs and a reduction in hospitalization time is certainly one method of achieving this. The introduction of fluoroquinolones has allowed physicians to discharge patients earlier as well as treating them entirely as outpatients; also, the patient is still receiving the same concentration of antibiotic and only the route of administration is changed. Patients also usually prefer to be treated as outpatients or to be discharged sooner. Finally, hospital administration and third party payers welcome any method of reducing costs, so the high-dose, short-course levofloxacin regimen is seen as a very cost-effective method of managing pneumonia. The cost-effectiveness of levofloxacin in severe CAP is supported by evidence from a trial that investigated a full course of oral levofloxacin and found that drug acquisition costs were 1.7 times lower in oral levofloxacin patients, who were also less often transferred to rehabilitation centers (11).